Debates of March 31st, 2022

Opposition Motion—Federal Budget

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, how astonishing. A Liberal who does not agree with the idea that the federal government should mind its own business? That is no surprise to me.

The federal government has no jurisdiction in the matter. It does not manage hospitals or health care systems. It is not good at it. Just the idea that the same government that runs the department of education could get involved in health care is enough to keep me up at night.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always difficult to rise after a speech as eloquent as that of my colleague from Mirabel.

Today we are seized with a motion about what the Conservatives would like to see in the next budget, including budgetary balance or, at the very least, an agreement on the path and deadline for reaching it. People will not be surprised to learn that there are several ways to achieve this.

I can understand why they find it difficult to differentiate between different parties' measures. Let us say that since the NPD-Liberal agreement, it is harder to tell orange from red. However, one thing is possible: Between now and April 7, some reds will turn blue from anger or from realizing that they are further right than their party. It will be interesting to see that change happen within the party. In any event, I am glad I am not in the Liberal caucus. We shall see in due course, as they say.

There is one thing that continues to stand out for me as the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue. When the Liberals are in power, they see a partisan advantage to putting off things until later, always later, even if the measure is urgently needed.

The Conservatives are also so predictable. Last week, they proposed a solution to rising prices that did not address the real problems our constituents are facing. The Conservatives are using the oil and gas industry and are loyal only to this industry. It will get increasingly hard for them to sell that to Quebeckers or even to Canadians in other parts of the country.

This morning, I want to start by talking about how the most vulnerable have been abandoned and promises to seniors have been broken. It is infuriating to see our seniors struggling to live on what little money they get from the government, while their savings melt like snow in the sun, as we are seeing these days. It is heartbreaking and shameful to know that seniors have never been worse off. I launched a petition in my riding and am pleasantly surprised by the response we have had. We have not yet counted all the signatures, but at least 2,000 people sent in their signed householders to express their dismay at the lack of health transfers. I hope that the government gets the message.

Being unable to respond quickly to emergencies is a big deal. Can we expect more and better services from this government?

Members know that, when it comes to problems related to federal bureaucracy, I frequently urge them to intervene on behalf of their constituents and meet their needs. People wait, and wait, and wait some more. Finally it is their turn and then they have to wait for their cheque.

The problem is that some people have bills to pay and obligations to meet. I have been told that people have been calling the EI office since November and have still not gotten an answer. That has disastrous consequences. The problem here is bureaucracy. People are having a hard time even finding out the status of their EI claims. The same goes for immigration and passport applications.

The government needs to change things and find solutions in that regard. This situation has a direct impact on people's problems and, in many cases, their wallets. I am not sure that the bank would agree to wait for a mortgage payment or that a landlord would be pleased to have to wait for their rent cheque.

People are victims because the money is sitting in Ottawa. I do not think that people can live off credit for very long, but that is the reality for many people. One day, this government will have to stop putting off effective, common-sense measures and look at fixing what is no longer working.

I am sure that, next week, the government will once again shower the oil industry with millions of dollars, which is a bad choice. When will the government realize that consumers have changed their habits?

Businesses are having a hard time adjusting too. Demand has shifted noticeably, and we need to be able to meet that demand. I am quite discouraged. However, I do hold out hope that the House may one day agree on an economic recovery that includes solutions compatible with Quebec's goals. Financially it would be viable. It is called energy transition.

Will the Minister of Finance be a pioneer in the financial world by adopting green finance measures? My colleague from Mirabel might want to expand on that because it makes sense.

For example, there could be an announcement about prohibiting RRSPs and pension funds from investing in businesses tied to fossil fuels. Many countries have already adopted this approach, and it would be a great way to demonstrate support for the energy transition.

I would be curious to know how much money the government and banks have invested in oil and gas since the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015. They have invested far too much. What we do know is that Canada has never come close to meeting its targets, ever since the agreement was adopted.

There is a cost associated with this, and we are paying for it in areas like health, as people are getting sicker and sicker because of the effects of smog, for example.

Speaking of health, the Bloc Québécois supports the joint request of the provinces and Quebec to increase federal health transfers from 22% to 35%. This is a reasonable request, since we know that that contribution had been set at 50% in past agreements. This contribution would go from $42 billion to $60 billion, an increase of $28 billion per year. There is a consensus in Quebec and Canada that health transfers need to be increased. Only the Liberals are standing in the way of solving the chronic underfunding of the health care system.

Let us get back to the energy transition. The many problems related to the environment justify staying the course on this necessary energy transition. We could demand that the government adequately support an electric vehicle supply chain for the electrification of transport to help individuals, businesses, governments and federal Crown corporations make this transition.

If we demand that electric vehicles be available in sufficient quantities, we can help ensure that our market meets its delivery deadlines now. Let us keep the incentive programs in place long enough for people currently waiting for a car to qualify. There is a problem with that right now.

Let us call on the federal government to table its national strategy on critical and strategic minerals and announce a strategy for the battery industry so that we can launch an industry cluster of electric and smart vehicles and enable the resource regions to prepare to manufacture near raw materials to supply these battery plants. Let us shift the paradigm where we send our critical and strategic minerals to the foreign battery industry.

Obviously, the issue of semi-conductors is just as important. How is it that we are unable to produce them in Canada and we are relying on foreign countries, such as Taiwan, whose production have slowed? It seems to me that we have all the critical and strategic minerals we need to be able to manufacture semi-conductors.

Quebec and its heavy transports are the envy of many provinces. Let us support the transport economy and especially innovation. Let us support research into advanced materials that help keep our industries competitive. These are solutions that will help us to be more productive. Higher productivity means more money in the government's coffers. That will make it much easier to achieve a balanced budget in the long term.

We must tackle the labour shortage. The job situation is good and unemployment rates are relatively low, which is good news. However, there are not enough people to fill the jobs available in this economic recovery, and that is problematic.

Why not prioritize measures such as transferring money to the provinces so they can recognize the foreign credentials of many foreign workers? That way, these people could could step into positions that are difficult to fill because of a shortage of workers with the required skills.

With regard to transferring the temporary foreign worker program to the provinces, you do not have to be as smart as the member for Berthier—Maskinongé to realize just how urgent that is, especially for agriculture. We have to ensure that master's and post-doctoral students obtain permanent residency before they finish their studies. It is a great incentive that will help attract and retain talent trained here in order to meet labour needs. This is an urgent issue in Abitibi—Témiscamingue. The Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue and the CEGEP will readily explain that we must retain talented people whose knowledge will contribute to our ability to innovate.

The federal government is so slow on immigration. Companies are getting many contracts but are forced to turn them down because they do not have the staff. It was a huge help to our industries in Abitibi-Témiscamingue and in many regions when the cap was increased to 20% in designated sectors, in particular the tourism and food industries. When will the government start fast-tracking immigration applications in the sectors experiencing labour shortages? The situation right now is unacceptable.

One example is the steel sector back home. Wait times are seven to 10 months for Ontario, which is around 10 kilometres away from us, while wait times for Quebec are 27 to 30 months. That is unacceptable. Naturally, people are giving up and crossing to the other side.

I could talk about supports for businesses, Internet access, cell service, land use or regional autonomy, especially through the creation of a territorial innovation fund by and for the regions. I could also talk about local agriculture.

We have the power to make decisions and to choose what we want to work on right now. If the government truly wants to make the green transition and balance the budget, it needs to set Quebec up for a real economic recovery that reflects the future we want to build.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the member spent a great deal of his time on the issue of immigration. If we take a look at what we have seen over the last couple of years, I think that we can be fairly proud of the system while always looking for improvements, of course. For example, I believe it was in 2020, with all of the refugees who settled throughout the world, a third of them settled here in Canada. Last year, we had over a half million. That is over 500,000 immigrants who settled or were granted permanent residency here in Canada.

Yes, there is always room for us to do more. We have seen a very progressive approach to dealing, for example, with Ukraine and the refugees from there. There have been 12,000-plus since the beginning of the new year, and a streamlined system is now being put in place to enhance those numbers going forward.

Can the member provide his thoughts on my comments?

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the key word in my colleague from Winnipeg North's remarks was “system”. That is the problem right there. It is frustrating to be an MP in the regions because the system does not provide services in the regions.

According to a survey carried out across Quebec and Canada, the Université du Québec en Abitibi—Témiscamingue ranks among the top five universities with regard to living conditions. My colleague from Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques will be pleased to learn that UQAT has such a good ranking.

A person's time at university is a wonderful time in their life, and it is important for students to have a good quality of life. Young people want to stay in our regions for the long term, and we are training them with that in mind.

International students want to come to this country and settle in our regions, but they are being discriminated against and turned away, mainly because they come from countries where the standard of living and GDP per capita are not high enough. Africa is a victim of this discrimination. There is a problem with the system, and we need to fix it by addressing the matter of wait times.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech. I hate to interrupt members, so I did not do so, but I am a stickler for the rules in this place where we speak of matters that are relevant to the bill. I would like to bring his attention to the actual motion, which reads:

That given that,

(i) excessive government spending has increased the deficit, the national debt, and fuelled inflation to its highest level in 31 years,

(ii) taxes on Canadians continue to increase, from the carbon tax to escalator taxes to Canada Pension Plan premiums,

(iii) the government refuses to provide relief to Canadians by temporarily reducing the Goods and Services Tax on gasoline and diesel, the House call on the government to present a federal budget rooted in fiscal responsibility, with no new taxes, a path to balance, and a meaningful fiscal anchor.

I invite the member to address those points as he failed to do so in his remarks.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is all part of an economic philosophy. We keep hearing about two options: budget cuts or spending increases. There is a third option, one that I have put forward before, and that is coming up with ways to increase productivity to bring in more money. It is a philosophical issue.

I am a firm believer in state intervention, which can increase budgets and really make the energy transition happen.

It will be interesting to see what emerges from the new NDP-Liberal coalition agreement. Perhaps we will see a new government philosophy that is keener on invoking closure, as we saw yesterday, thereby allowing the Liberal government to do whatever it wants. If that happens, it could end up being much harder to make that energy transition happen, and that is a problem.

I believe in the value system that enables a country to take advantage of times when huge amounts of money are coming in to better redistribute wealth and engage in long-term change strategies. We learned that from Keynes.

I am not at all in favour of the solutions put forward in the Conservatives' motion. I think we need long-term solutions, and I have made several such proposals, which the Bloc Québécois have championed and I am proud of.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Mr. Speaker, New Democrats are worried about the Conservatives' approach to tackling the affordability crisis.

Does my colleague think the rich should pay their fair share through higher taxes? Does he think that would help tackle inequality?

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, all social progress must be paid for, of course, but the measures implemented need to be financially viable.

I liked the question from one of my colleagues, who suggested going after tax havens to find the money. Obviously, there is work to be done in that area.

In my view, it is important to create winning conditions for our SMEs. After two years of COVID-19, we really need to help our SMEs recover so as to ensure that Canada's productivity increases in a sustainable way.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to today's motion because it provides an opportunity to understand a little better some of the thinking of our Conservative colleagues in the House. It lays out quite nicely some of the deficiencies in their thinking about the current economic problems that we are facing in Canada. It is also an opportunity to highlight some of the ways in which New Democrats think differently about these things and the different kinds of solutions that we would propose to the problems of our day.

I thought I might proceed just by walking through the motion, as it were, beginning with its first premise, paragraph (i), which says:

excessive government spending has increased the deficit, the national debt, and fuelled inflation to its highest level in 31 years....

There is clearly a sense in which it is trivially true that government spending increases the deficit. It is hard to have a public deficit if the government is not spending money, so that is true. It is always important to ask what the government is getting for that expenditure or, perhaps more specifically and importantly, what the public and what Canadians are getting for that expenditure, because there are different kinds of expenditures.

There are expenditures that are simply passing expenditures, and then there is expenditure that represents investment. Of course, one of the important aspects of investment is return. When we talk about public spending, there are different ways that we can get return on investment. We can get return on investment on the public books themselves. Sometimes we see that when governments invest in things that increase government revenue, the government actually ends up getting more money coming back. That is reflected on its books.

When we talk about public investment, there is an important difference from investment in the private sector. We see this far less, because it is a different mandate. Having a mandate to increase private profit is very different from having a public interest mandate. Sometimes when we invest from the public purse, the return on investment is experienced not on the government books but by the public. Sometimes it is in their household books, and sometimes it is in the benefit of employment and other things that obviously affect household budgets.

For instance, when New Democrats talk about public expenditure on something such as pharmacare, that is not because we love larger government programs for their own sake or because we think that this spending will not benefit Canadians or that there will not be a return on investment. It is quite the contrary. We support, and have fought a long time for, and are looking forward to making further progress on, a national pharmacare plan because we understand that it is going to have a direct impact on the household budgets of Canadians, so many of whom we have heard from.

In fact, I have heard Conservatives raise the issue of Canadians who are struggling to afford their medication, having to cut pills, and having to raid other budgets, such as their food budgets and their rent budgets, in order to get the life-saving medication that they need. That is why New Democrats support public investment in something that will lower the cost of prescription drugs. That makes sense to us.

That is a philosophical difference, because it says that we should be sharing the cost of trying to provide the things that our families and communities all need. It says that it is wrong for a small cross-section, the top 1% or 10% depending on how we measure it or look at it, to get to walk away with an increasingly larger piece of the pie while so many in Canada continue to struggle.

When we say let us get it off the government books, it does not go away. The federal government could give itself a pat on the back, as Conservatives did in the Harper years, for having smaller deficits, but those deficits do not go away. They get transferred to the household budgets of Canadians who continue to struggle with the cost of prescription drugs. They continue to struggle in the context of a housing market that has gotten out of control, and they continue to struggle with the cost of dental care, for which very few Canadians have ever had any meaningful help. We are optimistic about children from low-income families and their parents being able to afford to get help with those real problems that can have a lasting impact on their lives. There are real financial costs of them being able to get access to that service.

Is it true that government spending contributes to deficits? Of course, in fact there are no deficits without government spending. However, is that spending addressing other real deficits in the household incomes of Canadians? I have just argued that in the case of pharmacare and dental care, and I could go on but I will not because I want to get to the other parts of the motion. Depending on the expenditure, that has an impact by reducing the household deficits of many Canadians while increasing their access to services. That is a deficit that exists. It is just that low-income Canadians are facing that deficit on their own. It is not measured and publicly reported somewhere.

By having a public program, we could increase access to those services that are so important for Canadians' lives, and that means we are actually going to be measuring and recording that deficit somewhere. Gladly for me and for New Democrats, it means somewhere we are sharing that cost collectively, including with the people who have the most ability to pay for those things. Unfortunately many Canadians are just not in a position to pay for those things, fewer and fewer Canadians, as inflation increases.

The other issue with this first clause is that it pretends, wrongly, that government spending is the only driver of inflation. I think it is pretty obvious to anyone with ears to hear and eyes to see that this is not the case. Certainly we heard at the finance committee that some are of the opinion that quantitative easing in the context of the pandemic has increased the access to capital and that has allowed, particularly investors, to drive up the cost of housing.

There are actually ways to address this that do not involve any more public expenditure. For instance, having a higher down payment requirement for investors, as opposed to people who are trying to buy their own family home, is a way the government could cool the investment climate in the Canadian housing market without spending a dime. Having a differential rate on CMHC mortgage insurance for people who are buying investment properties as opposed to principal residences is another way to do that without spending a dime. In fact it would cause more revenue to come in. To the extent that the investment culture continued and to the extent that it did not, it would relieve demand in the housing market, which presumably should have a cooling effect on prices.

However, some pretend that quantitative easing is the only reason there has been incredible inflation in the housing market, which incidentally is not even really represented in the CPI figures, and that has been the subject of some debate at the finance committee. In fact, as housing prices cool in response to higher interest rates, it is likely that we will see inflation go up in the short term, because that is actually recorded. These are questions about how accountants and economists record inflation, and I think are less directly connected to what Canadians are actually experiencing. Even if the nominal inflation rate goes up, if housing prices are coming down, Canadians are going to benefit even in the context where apparently inflation is going up.

It makes no sense to talk about inflation in the current context without recognizing the production stoppages that have occurred as a result of the pandemic. There is still a lot of recovering happening, because we have a just-in-time economy. It is not like there were massive piles of inventory. Production capacity is pretty well attuned, in many industries, to demand.

Trying to make up for lost time is a difficult thing. That is going to take time. In the meantime, we have seen climate-induced natural disasters wreak havoc on the infrastructure required to deliver goods in a timely way in that just-in-time economy I was just talking about, and that drives up costs as well. There are a number of other causes of inflation that are well outside the control of government. That is why we think it is so important that the government act on the things it can act on and make a difference where it can.

The second bullet recognizes that there is a carbon tax increase coming. There is no question. It talks about escalator taxes, specifically referring to the escalator on the excise tax. It talks about Canada pension plan premiums as a tax.

Again, there is a kind of trivial sense in which that is true. As it happens, accountants, for convenience, have chosen to record Canada pension plan costs in their payroll tax ledger. That is fair enough. I am glad that is convenient for accountants, but we should not allow ourselves to be duped by a reasonable professional standard that allows them to talk about the cost per person on their payroll into thinking that the Canada pension plan is really a tax, because it is not. It is part of the wage package Canadians expect when they go in to work. They do not just look at their hourly wage. They look at their benefit package, if they are fortunate enough to be employed at a workplace that has one, and that is certainly something we want for more Canadians.

We also recognize that when we have universal programs, whether they are pharmacare or dental care, they help provide a competitive advantage to Canadian companies over their international competitors, because these are things that help them to attract workers, in the context of a labour shortage, without having to pay the costs of those plans. They might pay them through their taxes. If we have a fair tax system, they will pay for it. They will pay for it through their taxes, but the simplicity of being able to offer employees good benefits makes locating in Canada a more competitive and attractive option for international firms.

We know this to be true because that has been true of medicare over the years, and that is something many companies look favourably upon when they are considering where to locate their companies, but the Canada pension plan is not a tax. It is part of the wage package for which employees show up to work every day.

I have heard Conservatives get up in the House and talk about how difficult inflation is on seniors because their pensions are not keeping up with expenses. One of the ways we can do that is by building in a better pension for Canadian workers, and the only universal fully portable plan we have is the Canada pension plan. In fact, over 70% of Canadian workers right now do not have a workplace pension, which means the CPP is the only pension they have, apart from their own individual investments. We can be sure, when we talk about Canadians who are only $200 a month away from bankruptcy every month, they are not able to put a lot into any kind of personal savings vehicle to have their personal plan for retirement. This means the CPP is what they will be left with. That is why it is important to have higher CPP premiums in order to build a public pension plan that can actually allow people to retire with dignity and to bear some of the additional costs that happen over time.

As we see prices increase, it has been a problem that pensions have not kept pace with the cost of inflation, and the way to do that is by building a stronger public pension plan. If we mislead Canadians by calling that a simple tax increase, then I think we are leading them down the garden path and we are perpetuating a problem of pension income that has already been the case for far too long.

Yes, there are some tax increases. I would also say there are some things being called tax increases in this motion that are not, in fact, tax increases, and it does a disservice to Canadians to pretend that these things are tax increases, when they are clearly not.

The Conservatives say that the government refuses to provide relief to Canadians by temporarily reducing the goods and services tax on gasoline and diesel. That is true; it is not happening. For our part, I would remind the House that last week New Democrats proposed an amendment to the Conservative motion. We said we are willing to consider broad-based temporary tax relief as one way to try to help Canadians through a difficult time, but we proposed that this tax relief come on home heating instead of gas at the pump, and there were a number of reasons for that.

There are more people who heat their homes than drive. There are people who heat their homes with things other than gasoline, so providing tax relief in that way would be a way of providing tax relief that is not prejudiced in favour of the oil and gas sector, but would recognize a more diverse suite of energy proposals. We also argued that, in many cases when it comes to utilities for home heating, there is regulation on price increases, which means it is harder for companies to simply make up the difference that is caused by the lower tax by raising prices to capture that fiscal room for themselves to increase their profits instead of passing it on to consumers.

We thought those were at least three very good reasons to provide that broad-based temporary tax relief on home heating instead of gas at the pump, and all we have gotten from the Conservatives so far on that was a simple no.

Canadians may not know that on opposition day motions, the person who presents the motion has to agree to an amendment in order for it to be debated and voted on. Earlier today, I asked the member who brought this motion forward, the member of Parliament for Abbotsford, if he could explain to the House why Conservatives were not prepared to entertain temporary tax relief on home heating instead of gas at the pump. While he did say a lot of things in response, he did not mention home heating at all, so we continue to wait on that answer.

I would say the motion misrepresents the will of the House. There is an opportunity to compromise on the question of temporary broad-based tax relief, but when we proposed a solution to that and a way forward in an attempt to co-operate and find consensus, the Conservatives declined that opportunity and should not have been surprised that their motion, therefore, did not pass.

What is the final call to action of this motion? It is that “the House call on the government to present a federal budget rooted in fiscal responsibility, with no new taxes, a path to balance, and a meaningful fiscal anchor.” Here is the incoherence in the motion. It talks about a path to balance. It talks about fiscal responsibility, and it explicitly excludes the entire revenue side of balancing the books. Rare is the conversation around corporate boardroom tables where they say their books are in bad shape, they need to figure this one out for the sake of their investors and they want to be able to pay out higher dividends and a better return on shares, but they are not going to talk about how the company can raise new revenue or increase its revenue and they just want to get back to balance without any question of revenue. That makes no sense.

In the public context, it makes no sense because, as the Parliamentary Budget Officer reported just in December, 1% of Canadians now own and control 25% of the wealth that is generated in Canada. They are walking away with it without paying any taxes on it through tax haven agreements. Previously, the PBO estimated this is costing Canadian taxpayers $25 billion a year. The fact that the Conservatives would talk about balancing the budget and deliberately exclude looking at that as a way to try to bring things back to balance, instead of simply cutting things that Canadians are depending upon, mystifies me.

It is one of the important differences between Conservatives and New Democrats, because we think tax havens should absolutely be part of the conversation. New Democrats have also run on having a wealth tax on fortunes over $10 million. There is not a lot of people with fortunes of $10 million or more in Canada. In terms of asking them to pay a little bit more, particularly in light of having seen Canada's billionaires expand their wealth exponentially during the pandemic, it is ridiculous to me that idea would be ruled out of order and not a possibility without further debate or discussion.

We have seen a number of large companies in certain industries, which were profitable before the pandemic, become even more profitable during the pandemic. It is why New Democrats continue to insist on the idea of having an excess profit tax, where we look at their average profits over the years in advance of the pandemic, we look at their average profits postpandemic and on the amount that their pandemic profits exceed their prepandemic average, we have a higher incremental rate of tax to make sure they are paying their fair share and not profiteering on the pandemic.

That is a reasonable way to fund the services that Canadians need and to fund some of the things that Conservatives themselves, depending on the day, will call for to provide relief to Canadian households that are in economic distress, but this motion says, no, none of that. Conservatives are not interested in hearing those ideas or talking about the revenue side of balancing the budget.

We, in the NDP, think that is preposterous and it is why we will not be supporting the motion today.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I will interrupt the proceedings, and we will come back to questions and comments after.

The Chair has received notice of a question of privilege by the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman.

Alleged Breaches of Privilege Presented in the Third Report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a question of privilege related to the third report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics tabled earlier today. This report was previously tabled as the committee's second report in the second session of the 43rd Parliament and spawned two questions of privilege from my predecessors, as official opposition shadow ministers for ethics.

Last June, the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes raised this question of privilege on the day the report was originally tabled. Because the Chair had not come back to the House with a ruling before Parliament was dissolved last summer, the hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil renewed the question of privilege in November on the day of the Speech from the Throne.

Concerning the second question of privilege, the Chair ruled, on December 9, 2021, at page 955 of the Debates, that it was:

...not possible in the current circumstances to seize the House on these questions of privilege....

By tabling its third report today, the ethics committee has changed those circumstances. Indeed, as the Chair ruled in December:

Since we are in a new Parliament, the issues raised are no longer before the House. It is up to the House and its committees to decide whether it is desirable to adopt these orders once again in the new Parliament.

The Chair also pointedly referenced an October 9, 1997, ruling of Speaker Parent. That case concerned the leak of a draft committee report in the dying days of the preceding Parliament, which our Chair favourably cited, saw Speaker Parent uphold, at page 690 of Debates:

If after examination a committee were to present a report recommending that this issue required further consideration, the House would have the opportunity of considering the issue at that time.

The ethics committee has gone to the trouble of considering and passing a motion to readopt word for word its former second report so as to be able to put these issues and the relevant evidence before the House once again.

In brief, the committee's third report can be relied upon to establish no fewer than seven breaches of privilege. I will repeat that: seven breaches of privileges.

The first three concern the failures of Rick Thies, Amitpal Singh and Ben Chin to appear before committee as ordered by the House. The next three relate to the government's instructions to each of these three witnesses to disregard a lawful order of the House of Commons. Finally, there is the prevaricating or misleading evidence given by the hon. member for Waterloo.

Since my colleagues previously laid out extensive arguments, and in the case of the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes provided written submissions at the request of the Assistant Deputy Speaker, I will save the House a considerable amount of time by referring the Chair to these previous arguments, both oral and written, and adopt them as my own.

That being said, there are a few points I ought to address briefly in connection with the December 9 ruling. On page 954, the Chair stated:

...as a result of the dissolution of the 43rd Parliament, the orders of the House...have expired. The government and the people summoned to appear are released from their obligations.

It is correct to say that the witnesses were released from their obligations at dissolution, but all the same, an election call did not allow for their contempt to be purged.

This autumn, the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes shared several precedents in support of the proposition that one Parliament may punish a contempt committed against a predecessor Parliament. The Chair addressed these arguments, noting:

Distinctions must be made between the matter at hand and the precedents cited. When we examine the latter, the House had not expressed itself beforehand...

To be fair, unlike the situation concerning the government's failure to table documents concerning Winnipeg's National Microbiology Laboratory, the House had not yet pronounced itself on a privilege motion arising from the ethics committee work. The original question of privilege was outstanding when Parliament was dissolved, and the second question of privilege did not proceed in the absence of a renewed committee report.

With the third report tabled earlier today, the House is now free to express itself concerning the apparent contempts shown in the face of the ethics committee. Even if the Chair were to take the interpretation that the House had pronounced itself on the witnesses when it originally ordered their attendance on March 25, 2021, a year ago, the issues respecting the government's role in preventing their attendance, as well as the concerns about the testimony of the member for Waterloo, were only brought to the House's attention when the former second report was tabled.

As I noted, it was not pronounced upon by the House before the Prime Minister sent the country early to the polls last summer.

Of course, I will quickly note that it is not an interpretation I would share. Instead, I would argue the House has not pronounced on any privilege matters here, but I do recognize that other perspectives might exist.

In closing, the WE scandal itself was a seriously blight on good government in the country. The ethics committee has done good work shining a light on some of the issues exposed. However, as the ethics committee report also shows, the scandalous behaviour did not stop the Prime Minister's government from offering more than half a billion dollars to his pals, the Kielburgers, but it continued through the committee's study with the open contempt of Parliament shown by cabinet ministers and their staff.

By readopting and retabling this report today, the ethics committee is saying that it does not wish for such irresponsible behaviour to go unchecked and unaddressed.

I would like to quote from the supplementary opinion attached to that report today. It says:

Whether it is illegal vacations to billionaire island, ClamScam, forgotten French villas, political interference in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, or the WE Scandal – this Liberal government’s complete disregard for good ethical governance has greatly damaged Canadian’s trust in their governing institutions [including here, in Parliament]. The existence of a two-tiered set of laws is a reality for everyday Canadians. There is one set of rules for the Liberal elite in this country and another set for everyone else.

This is why I am prepared to move an appropriate motion, should you find a prima facie case of privilege.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to underscore that the Green Party of Canada was dissatisfied with the level of investigation that took place into the SNC-Lavalin affair and into efforts to impede the investigation by the RCMP. It is not exactly the same point of privilege raised, but it is tangential to it.

I certainly think the public of Canada needs to know why pressures were placed on our former minister of justice, the hon. Jodie Wilson-Raybould, who was also, of course, the then attorney general of Canada.

I am not convinced those pressures came from the PMO. I will say that. I have an open mind on that question. However, pressures were brought to bear, and I think it requires a full investigation, which we have not had.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois reserves the right to intervene on this question of privilege at a later date.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to note that the NDP House leader may wish to weigh in on this at some future point.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I thank the hon. member for the question of privilege. We will review the information and get back to the House as soon as is practical.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Opposition Motion—Federal Budget

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP backed the government, which will be presenting a budget with no plan to balance whatsoever. The NDP has given this government, to 2025, full backup to run a deficit, doubling the national debt within six and a half years.

Inflation is at the highest in decades. Canadians cannot make ends meet, and as far as bringing in food, going to school, buying a car or using transportation, their lives are getting more expensive by the day. Still the NDP is backing the government.

I am not sure how the hon. member can defend his position and the government's position as well, considering where the money is going to come from. That is the question they are not asking. They want all these fantasies of spending at all levels. They want to please everybody, but the question they are not asking themselves is where the money is coming from.

As far as now, the money is only coming from Canadians who need the money the most, Canadians who cannot make ends meet and Canadians who want to see a better future.

Can the hon. member tell us where the money is going to come from?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would start by noting that Canada is not alone in having made massive expenditures during the pandemic period. We are alongside our G20 colleagues in having made incredible expenditures, so it is not something that is out of the ordinary with respect to responding to the pandemic. A lot of that spending went into direct transfers to individual households to help weather the economic consequences of the pandemic.

Finally, I would reiterate a few of the points from the end of my speech, which were very much about revenue. I mentioned having a wealth tax on fortunes of $10 million and over as a way to generate revenue, as well as closing the tax havens, which would bring in $25 billion in tax revenue from the most wealthy. It is not the people who are struggling with the cost of inflation, but those who are best able to cope with it, who are getting away with a further $25 billion in wealth every year because of our tax haven arrangements.

These are things we can do to address the revenue side. It is simply not true that New Democrats are not interested in the question of where the money comes from. We simply do not agree with the Conservatives that the wealthiest among us should continue to get a free ride while everyone else struggles.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I think gets missed in a lot of the rhetoric we hear from the Conservatives is when they say we should stop spending government dollars on programs. I will use the example of child care. In Canada, for the first time, we now have a national child care plan.

Mr. Speaker, if we look at the impact that has had in your home province of Quebec, it increased the workforce significantly. It is believed the same will happen at the national level, where we will have more people engaged in the workforce. Yes, there is a cost to providing that plan, but there will be many social and economic benefits because there will be more people in the workforce who will be paying taxes.

I wonder if my friend could provide his thoughts on the fact that the government spending money does not necessarily mean it is an absolute cost because often there is revenue that is generated.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for returning to one of the points I made in my speech, which is the idea of public investment and the ways in which the public can get a return on investment from public spending.

Child care is a very good example. It is well documented that investments in child care can help grow the economy, and one of the by-products of growing the economy is an increase in government revenue. This was an argument we made vociferously in this place from 2015 onward. At the time, the Liberals ridiculed us, saying this was not something they could do, that it did not make sense because it was a provincial jurisdiction, that the provinces would never agree to it and they would not be interested in the money. We of course knew that leadership and money coming from the federal government would allow the provinces to get more ambitious in the child care services they provide, which would have a beneficial effect on the economy.

We are glad the Liberals finally came around on child care. That is why we continue to push on a number of measures. We brought them around on dental care after they voted against it only nine months ago. We are looking forward to similar returns on investment for the Canadian public by putting this program in place as well.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about balancing public finances and balancing the budget, I think the concept of tax fairness is fundamental.

When we talk about reducing the deficit without even mentioning the possibility of tackling the problem of tax havens or of creating a special tax on the super wealthy and those who have profited from the crisis, while so many SMEs have been struggling during the pandemic and are at the end of their rope and so many of them have been forced to shut down after so many lockdowns, it seems to me that this is simply called “deficit reduction”. However, it is reducing the deficit at the expense of the population and that of the provinces and their public services, similar to what happened during the Chrétien and Martin years.

This could only be regarded as the rich looking out for the rich.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it was not just the provinces but the people that they served who suffered immensely when the Chrétien-Martin government of the 1990s made the deepest cuts that we have seen to the health and social transfers.

New Democrats are concerned to restore a meaningful role for the federal government in funding health services. In some cases, that means doing it ambitiously by providing programs in collaboration with the provinces that will bring new services to Canadians through public funding, but it also means making up for the simple absence of federal funding with some unconditional funding for the provinces as well. We think there is an appropriate mix of those things that can contribute to improving health care and other services in Canada.

The way to do that is to make sure that the wealthiest are paying their fair share. There is a trajectory over the last 30 or more years in Canada of the people at the top paying less and less in taxes. In fact, there was a Liberal platform commitment to impose a minimum tax on the wealthiest because their effective rate of taxation is often lower than it is for the poorest Canadians who are paying taxes in Canada. There is something incredibly perverse about that. It is something government action can fix, and there will be a salutary effect on the books here in Ottawa if we do it.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to get back to the idea that we should be cancelling the increase in the carbon tax because of its impact on Canadians.

Just to review some reality that we have not had injected yet, as of tomorrow, the carbon tax impact for a litre of gas will be 2.2¢ a litre. However, because of the global instability and because of what is happening in Ukraine and with the lockdowns in China, gas prices have had volatility of up to 32¢ in the last month in the GTA, and yes, we have gas experts predicting it will drop by 15¢ because of increased supplies from the opening up of reserves.

I see the increase in the gas tax for the purpose of adding to the carbon price as being so small as to be a blip in a sea of volatility. Can the hon. member comment?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands makes an excellent point. In fact, I think in my lifetime alone, I have seen long weekends have a bigger impact on the price of gasoline than the carbon tax.

We know that oil and gas companies are prepared to raise the price at the pump for just about any reason, and sometimes for no reason at all. It is the wrong focus if we are going to talk about meaningful tax relief for Canadians in this difficult time. It is why we proposed providing some relief on home heating costs instead, because often those prices are regulated and companies actually have to provide a justification for a rate increase and can be denied those rate increases if there is not an adequate reason. It was very much along those lines that we proposed the amendment that the Conservatives refused last week.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak in the House today on this important opposition day motion, and I will be sharing my time with the member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis.

Next week we will find out what is contained in the Liberals' budget. This will be a historic budget, as the NDP has already pledged to vote in favour without even knowing its contents. If my NDP colleagues are not nervous, I certainly am.

The pre-budget leaks have not started just yet, but we know that in the coming days a few selected journalists will be given a couple of tidbits to help set the narrative. It is a tactic that is as old as time, and I am hoping the Minister of Finance will be signalling to the media that she will be tabling a plan to balance the budget.

Our motion today is starting the important conversation about getting our nation's finances back in order. It does not dictate what the government must spend money on, but it does ask the Liberals to finally table a plan that outlines a path back to balance.

The government's budget is by far the most important document of the parliamentary cycle. Louis XIV's finance minister stated, “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.” Well, I doubt the Minister of Finance will agree with that statement.

I know that every member of Parliament is hearing from their constituents about the cost-of-living crisis that we are in today. If Liberal MPs went to their local grocery store or gas station and asked their constituents if they wanted the government to provide some tax relief, the overwhelming answer would be “yes”.

This government's nickel-and-diming is starting to add up. This is the government that said it would never introduce a Netflix tax, and then it did. Now it wants the CRTC to regulate online content providers, and inevitably those costs will be passed down to businesses and consumers.

The carbon tax is going up this Friday, tomorrow, as my colleagues were just talking about, which will push the price of fuel even higher. Just last week, the Liberals voted against our Conservative motion to provide GST relief at the pump, but are now refusing to press "Pause" on the carbon tax hike, and they are raising payroll taxes on businesses just as many are clawing their way out of this terrible pandemic.

While the Liberals may view themselves as Robin Hood, in reality they are more like the Sheriff of Nottingham, ever on the hunt for whatever they can scrounge up. We have never seen a government so committed to class warfare as this one. They fought my private member's bill on the transfer of small businesses and farms because they thought it would provide tax loopholes for families. I, like many of my colleagues in this place, had to endure listening to speeches by the ever-present members for Winnipeg North and Kingston and the Islands about how awful my bill was. Thank goodness most of the Liberal MPs who studied my bill had the fortitude to ignore their nonsensical rhetoric and voted in favour of it. Let us never forget that this is the government that called entrepreneurs, farmers and small business tax cheats.

I remember all too well when the Liberals rolled back the TFSA limits because they said it was only helping the wealthy. This is a government that also put up an escalator tax on Canadian spirits and alcohol, another needless cash grab.

I also get the fact that the Liberals want us to fight them on their tax hikes on big-ticket purchases. That is politics, and it is part of the parcel of how the government wants to define itself and to wedge the opposition. If anyone on the Liberal bench does not want to admit that fact, they can save their breath and start proposing solutions rather than just tax hikes.

In the budget next week, I am eager to see a plan to get inflation under control. I want to see a commitment to stop raising taxes. I want to see a plan to provide relief for families and seniors. I want to see a plan that brings spending levels back down to earth. I want to see a strategy that encourages the private sector to start building homes, that gets energy and mining projects built and that acknowledges that Canada can be a food superpower.

Regardless of what some may have us believe, there is not an unlimited supply of money. A good finance minister has the strength to tell her colleagues “no”, the courage to defend those tough choices and the ingenuity of reprioritizing spending where it matters the most.

It was not that long ago that this government vocalized such commitments. Back in the budget of 2017, Scott Brison was tasked to conduct a spending review to find government waste. He was tasked with finding and eliminating poorly targeted and inefficient programs, wasteful spending and ineffective and obsolete government initiatives.

Like many parliamentarians, I was eager to see what Mr. Brison would discover and what he would decide to eliminate. We already knew by then that the government's most modest deficits had turned into permanent deficits. Here we are, four or five years later, and no savings were ever found and no waste was ever eliminated.

I do not know a single Canadian who believes that the government is running at peak performance. If one exists, they are probably on the other side of the House across the floor. Knowing Mr. Brison, he probably did offer some solid ideas to reduce spending and improve government efficiency, but did his proposals fall on deaf ears?

One can only speculate on how difficult it must be for a minister in the Liberal government to reduce government spending. Now Mr. Brison is retweeting the thoughts of a Conservative leadership candidate on approving an energy project and is providing his thoughts on the new NDP-Liberal alliance. He is now a distraught Liberal, worried about the possibility of the decades of economic damage that this new parliamentary alliance with the NDP will cause. When the Liberals have lost Scott Brison, it is clear they have lost their way.

I too am worried. Taxpayers, job creators and entrepreneurs are already bracing themselves for next week’s budget. They are worried about the never-ending deficits. I have already said that today's deficits are tomorrow's taxes, but I remain hopeful. I am hopeful because the best day to adjust course is today. If steps are taken today, it will be all the easier to restore Canada’s fiscal future. Waiting, on the other hand, will only make things worse.

It is easy to look the other way. It is easy to pretend Canadians are not facing a serious cost-of-living crisis and it is easy to make popular short-term decisions for political reasons. However, there is courage in recognizing when the old approach is failing. I am asking the Liberal government to think outside of the narrow lines it has drawn for itself and do what is right. There is no question that we must respond to today’s challenges, but there is much to be said about also being ready for whatever tomorrow brings.

I fully understand that we had to help people get through the pandemic. As we look to the future, it is now time for the Liberals to make some tough decisions. They can no longer kick the can further down the road. The budget next week must tell ministers to start looking inwards for funding to help pay for any new spending commitments.

If a minister wants to introduce a new spending initiative, the Minister of Finance cannot just add that to the deficit. Ministers should review how their department delivers programs and see if there are ways to trim costs to reallocate those funds to pay for new commitments. This would force every minister to scrutinize every program they oversee. It would task them with determining if every program is meeting its objectives or can be delivered differently. I know these conversations will not be easy, but they are necessary. For those thinking this is common practice in government, I can assure them it is not.

In closing, I know there are going to be costs in the years ahead to purchase equipment the brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces need to do their jobs. There are going to be further expenditures to invest in our health care system and to support our seniors. These are things every member in the House recognizes. I implore my colleagues to vote in favour of this motion, which calls on government to present a federal budget rooted in fiscal responsibility, with no new taxes, a path to balance and a meaningful fiscal anchor. That is something that we should all support. Our responsibility is not only to Canadians today but to future generations, and the budget should signal as much.